| 397 CHAPTER 21.
1864.
IN the English mission the year 1864 opened up with improved prospects of success. True there were many and serious obstacles to meet, but compared with the situation one year before, much change had been wrought. Then the Reorganization had not been represented on this side of the water; now there were three able ministers in the field, supported by quite a strong local force; several branches had been organized, besides the seed had been sown with liberal hand, and was doubtless germinating in many hearts, to bear fruitage in future time.
We have not the details of the labor done in the first two months of the year by Elders Briggs and Jeremiah, but we have the information that they were zealously and constantly laboring to disseminate the message intrusted to them. Elder Derry relates that he labored in Wales until January 12,1864, and of the saints met there he says: "I never experienced more disinterested kindness than I received from the Welsh and English saints whom it was my privilege to meet in Wales; and I shall always remember them with gratitude."
He visited Newport in Monmouthshire, where he had some experience with the Utah missionaries, Grant and Benson, who treated him with rude discourtesy. He did missionary work in Forest Dean, Gloucester (where on February 1,1864, he baptized and ordained to the office of elder, James Wiltshire), Norton, Cheltenham, Tewkesbury, Stourbridge, Dudley, Wolverhampton, West Bromwich, and Birmingham.
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